March 3, 2019 Sunday
Sermon Texts and Manuscript
Exodus 34:29-35
Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down
from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did
not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.
When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining,
and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and
all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them.
Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all
that the Lord had spoken
with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a
veil on his face; but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take
the veil off, until he came out; and when he came out, and told the Israelites
what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that
the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face
again, until he went in to speak with him.
2 Corinthians
3:12-4:2
Since,
then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, not like Moses, who put
a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the
glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this
very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is
still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day
whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the
Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the
glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into
the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the
Lord, the Spirit.
Therefore, since it is by God's mercy that we are
engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful
things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God's word;
but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience
of everyone in the sight of God.
Exodus gives us the
founding stories of the Hebrew people, what they would all know, like one of
the Sunday School stories we learned growing up. The Israelites came out of Egypt, freed from
slavery after the ten plagues and the drowning of Pharaoh and his army in the
Red Sea, and they came to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. At this mountain, Moses first received the
Ten Commandments. Now he goes up daily
to bring back the rules about building the tabernacle, the House of God. Being in the presence of God transforms
Moses. His face, as Exodus puts it,
“shone because he had been talking to God”.
And it scared the BLEEP out of the people whenever he came
down looking that way. It kind of makes
sense, Moses face looking like some kind of divine halogen bulb in a culture
where the campfire is the brightest human-made light? It was so scary that he would have to wear a
veil among the people until such time as the reflection of the Lord’s glory
finally faded away. He would unveil
again in the presence of God.
This story carries with it the strength of legend. If I was going to share this passage as a Children’s
Time, it would go something like, “When God led the people out of slavery in
Egypt, God led them to God’s Holy Mountain.
There, God warned the people not to touch the mountain, because all of
it was Holy. Only Moses was allowed to
go up on the mountain. Whenever Moses spoke
to God, God’s glory was SO powerful that it reflected on Moses’ face! He would come back to their camp and his face
would be GLOWING!! That was so
terrifying that he would put on a veil when he was down in the camp so as not
to scare the people with the power of God.
Can you imagine? If you went up
on the mountain with Moses, your faces would be glowing with God’s glory when
you came down too….”
Paul uses this story in our passage from Corinthians. His church folks there would be drawn from
the synagogue, the Jewish folks who have come to believe in Jesus and the
Gentiles who, while not converting to Judaism because Judaism doesn’t do
conversion the way we Christians think about it, were deeply into the Jewish
faith and active at the synagogue, they would have known this story as
well.
Paul wants to take this familiar story and move forward
with it, move into how it has been changed in the light of Jesus.
The veil that lay across Moses’ face, separating the people
from the glory of God, becomes a metaphor for Paul. The people did not want to look upon the
glory of God, Paul argues, they hardened their minds, an expression used to
mean they got stubborn about obeying God.
This expression is used a lot because the people were stubborn, a lot.
The glory of God was right there, and they were not
embracing it. They kept doing their own
thing. The prime example is a few
chapters before. Moses was up getting
the Ten Commandments, the most important chunk of the law. He was up on the Mountain of God for too long
so the people demanded that his brother Aaron, his second in command, make for
them a Golden Calf as an idol to worship.
The people hardened their minds right there at the base of God’s
mountain and worshipped this god of their own making right in front of God’s
face. It was a miracle they were not destroyed for it. No wonder they could not face the glory of
God reflected in the face of Moses.
Paul takes it from there, “to this very day, when they hear
the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in
Christ is it set aside” and “to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil
lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now
the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though
reflected in a mirror…”
In Christ the veil is set aside. When one turns to the Lord, the veil is
removed, because the Lord is Spirit and where the Spirit is, there is freedom-freedom
from the veil. What is the Spirit? It is the Holy Spirit, that which came down
upon the church at Pentecost. And now
they see the glory of the Lord as if it was reflected in a mirror.
Moses reflected the glory of God because he came face to
face with God. And it frightened the
people so much, he masked it with a veil.
That was then. Now, through
Jesus, God, who is Spirit, who entered into us at the event of Pentecost, now
reveals the glory of God to each and every one of us, like we were looking at
God in a mirror. And what is it that we
see in the mirror? We see
ourselves. So that glory of God is being
reflected in each and every one of us.
As we look at
that reflection of God’s glory in each of us, Paul continues, “we are being
transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this
comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” The
glory that was reflected in the face of one man-and veiled to boot-has become
the glory that, through Christ, shines through all of us.
“Therefore,”
says Paul, “since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we
do not lose heart.” Because it seems the
people in Corinth were losing heart. He
goes on to say, “We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we
refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God's word…” To press the metaphor, these things seem to
be lowering the veil over the glory of God in the people of Corinth. But Paul will not allow that to happen, so “…by
the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of
everyone in the sight of God.”
We do not have
the same circumstances here, yet this passage speaks to us also, now. “Since it is by God’s mercy that we are
engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.” Let’s be real, who here hasn’t felt that a
veil has been descending on the ministry of this church? Who has not lost heart along the way? What’s our attendance? Under a dozen for how many weeks? How long will the heat be out? When will families return? What are we going to do with empty rooms that
look like they were just left? When are
we fixing the leaks? If the veil has
fallen now, how long before the curtain falls?
But it isn’t
our work that we are doing here. It is
by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry. If we have turned to the Lord, the veil has
been removed, ONLY in Christ has it been set aside. What does that mean? It means we need to take a moment and look
around.
I don’t mean
we look around at the empty seats and lament.
I don’t mean we look around at our ‘strategies’ for doing church and see
what tricks and patterns and procedures we might play with to increase our
‘market share’ or ‘public visibility.’
Rather, when we look around, do we look at one another and see the glory
of God reflected in the face of our friends and fellow church goers? If we were to take a moment and seriously
consider the question, am I reflecting the glory of God?” Because, according to the Confessions of the
church, the chief and highest end of all humanity is to glorify God and to
fully enjoy God forever.
That is the
result of accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That is the result of being ‘saved’. That is the result of turning our lives over
to Jesus Christ. That is the result of
the free gift of salvation that God gives to us by the death and resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is why
Jesus laid down the Lord’s Supper as a sacrament, a sacred command, the
remembrance of His body broken for us, His blood shed for us, it is the journey
to our salvation. All of that is to
break down the veil that masks the glory of God from being made real in each
and every one of us.
In Jesus, we
may be five in number, we may be one hundred and five in number, we maybe a
thousand and five in number, that is not what is important. What is important, as Paul tells us, “it is
by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.”
Amen